Don Juan, My Love

This Spanish comedy is an unexpected charmer, a frothy mixture of ribaldry, slapstick and mistaken identities. You know you're in for something different from the very beginning when a woman takes center stage and sings the opening credits while flamenco dancers stomp to the cadences. The setting is Seville on the eve of All Saints Day, October 31, 1990. After 450 years, the ghost of Don Juan arises from his grave. The legendary lover has been in Purgatory all these years but if he can perform one good deed during his visit to earth, he will be released from his limbo. Don Juan's return coincides with Seville's annual production of Don Juan Tenorio and, by chance, with its lead actor Juan Marquina (Juan Luis Galiardo plays both Don Juans). Marquina is a womanizing, arrogant jerk who has antagonized virtually every cast and crew memeber. In a fit of artistic pique, Marquina storms out of the theatre and goes off to conduct his alternate career as a drug smuggler and basic cad about town. A wild series of mistaken identites ensues in which the two Don Juans find themselves striding the same stage, bedding the same women and chapping the same people. One of them is the police inspector who's frustrated because this Don Juan (whom he suspects of smuggling) won't register on his surveillance equipment (because he's a ghost). Then there are the women. One of them speaks only with castanets (her dialogue is subtitled). Another woman (Almodovar veteran Rossy de Palma) does contortionist somersaults into Don Juan's arms. But once they get their hands in his pants, they all exclaim “You're not Juan!” (which only makes them more rambunctious). Don Juan, My Love keeps this off-kilter mix swirling at a brisk pace that's great fun to watch. With equal measures of screwball comedy, bedroom farce and social satire, Don Juan, My Love carries that glorious flamenco rush from its opening credits through to its closing moments.